Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/594

532 and died there May 29, 1832. He was pastor of the Independent church at Lancaster from 1778 to 1783. Afterwards, he was for twenty years minister of the West Orchard chapel at Coventry. At the end of this period he removed to London, where for twenty-nine years he officiated at the Fetter Lane chapel. For many years he performed gratuitously the duties of secretary to the London Missionary Society, and edited, with much success, the Evangelical Magazine. He is chiefly remembered now as the author of the Village Sermons, which appeared at intervals from 1799 to 1812, and were at last completed in six volumes. They have had an extraordinarily wide circulation, and have passed through numerous editions. He edited many works, among others the Pilgrim s Progress, Collings s Weaver s Pocket-book, or Weaving Spiritu alized, and Henry s Bible with Improvements.  BURDETT, (1770-1844), Baronet, was born on the 25th of January 1770. The rudiments of his education he received at Westminster school, whence he removed in due time to Oxford. He did not wait to graduate at that university, but in 1790 set out on a Con tinental tour, in the course of which he became strongly imbued with the revolutionary principles then dominant in France and other countries. On his return to England in 1793 he married the youngest daughter of Thomas Coutts, a London banker, with whom he received a large fortune. In 1796, through the influence of the duke of Newcastle, he was chosen M.P. for Boroughbridge, on which occasion he had as colleague John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon. In 1797 he succeeded his grandfather in the baronetcy, his father and elder brother having predeceased him. At the outset of his political career he was a zealous supporter of ultra-liberal measures. In 1802, after a protracted contest, he was elected M.P. for Middlesex, in opposition to the former member, Mr Mainwaring. The election, however, was declared void, and in the subsequent canvass he was defeated. In 1806 he again stood for Middlesex and was again defeated, but when he stood for Westminster in the same year he was elected by a large majority. In March 1810 he wrote a letter to his constituents, denying the right of Government to commit for libel, as they had recently done. This letter was brought under the notice of the House, and the speaker issued a warrant for the committal of Sir Francis to the Tower. The baronet, how ever, disputed the right of the House, and had to be removed from his own residence by force. There was some collision in consequence between the military and the populace who were devoted to Sir Francis. At the pro rogation of parliament he was released, and lost no time in prosecuting the Speaker and the Sergeant-at-arms, but without success. On the occasion of the Manchester riots in 1819 he wrote a letter to his constituents, for which he was tried for libel, found guilty, and condemned to three months imprisonment, and to pay a fine of 1000. In 1837 he ceased to represent Westminster, and when he was returned for North Wiltshire he joined the Conserva tive party, which he supported during the remainder of his political career. He died January 23, 1844.  BURG, a town of Prussian Saxony, on the River Ihle, and on the railway from Berlin to Magdeburg, 14 miles N.E. of the latter. It has long been noted for its woollen manufactures, which afford employment to a great part of its population. The town formerly belonged to the Querfurt principality, but was ceded to Brandenburg in 1687. It owes its prosperity to the large influx of industrious French, Palatinate, and Walloon refugees, which took place in the end of the 17th century. Popula tion in 1871, 15,184.  BURGAGE is a form of tenure, both in England and Scotland, applicable to the property connected with the old municipal corporations and their privileges. The term is of less practical importance in the English than in the Scottish system, where it still holds an important place in the practice of conveyancing, real property being there generally divided into feudal-holding and burgage-holding. It is usual to speak of the English burgage-tenure as a relic of Saxon freedom resisting the shock of the Norman con quest and its feudalism, but it is perhaps more correct to consider it a local feature of that general exemption from feudality enjoyed by the municipia as a relic of their ancient Roman constitution. The reason for the system preserving its specifically distinct form in Scottish convey ancing is because burgage-holding was an exception to the system of subinfeudation which remained prevalent in Scotland when it was suppressed in England. While other vassals might hold of a graduated hierarchy of overlords up to the crown, the burgess always held directly of the sovereign. It is curious that while in England the burgage-tenure was deemed a species of soccage, to distin guish it from the military holdings, in Scotland it was strictly a military holding, by the service of watching and warding for the defence of the burgh. In England the franchises enjoyed by burgesses, freemen, and other con suetudinary constituencies in burghs, were dependent on the character of the burgage-tenure.  BURGDORF (in French, ), a town in the Swiss canton of Bern, on the River Emme, about 14 miles by railway from the chief city. It is situated 1840 feet above the level of the sea, and consists of an upper and lower part, which are connected by a spiral arrangement of streets. Its houses are substantially built, and it has an ancient castle, a town-house, a hospital, an orphanage, and a public library. Ribbons and damask, tobacco and chocolate are manufactured ; and a large trade is carried on in the dairy produce of the Emmenthal. From the Lueg about 4 miles to the N.E. a view of the whole Bernese Alps can be obtained. The castle of Burgdorf was built at a very early date, and the town became the capital of Lesser Burgundy and the residence of the dukes of Zahringen. In 1270 they were succeeded by the lords of Kyburg, who, in 1326, pawned their possessions to Ulrich of Signan. In 1384 the town and countship were purchased by Bern for 37,000 florins, and the Bernese magistrates held rule till 1798. Pestalozzi had his educa tional establishment in the castle for a number of years. Population in 1870, 5078.  BÜRGER, (1748-1794), a cele brated German poet, was born on the 1st of January 1748 at Wolmerswende, a village in the principality of Halber- stadt, where his father was Lutheran minister. In his childhood he showed little inclination to study ; the Bible was the only book which had any attraction for him, and his first attempts in versification were imitations of the Psalms. It is to this first direction of his studies that we are to attribute the Biblical phrases, and the allusions to Christi anity, which we find even in his amatory poetry. He was fond of solitude, and indulged in all the romantic senti ments which deserts and the gloom of forests inspire. From the school of Aschersleben, where his maternal grand father resided, and which he quitted in consequence of receiving a severe chastisement for composing an epigram, he was sent to the institution at Halle. But at neither of these places did he make much progress, having a taste only for the lessons in prosody and versification. In 17G4 Burger, who was intended for the clerical office, began to attend the course of lectures given by the professors of the university. Klotz, a learned classical scholar, admitted him into the select number of the young men whose talents he took a pleasure in cultivating ; but this society appears not to have produced the same favourable effect on the 